A Wisconsin woman who spent five years on the run after being recruited by her “long-distance lover” to kill a man in the United Kingdom was found guilty Tuesday, British authorities said.
Aimee Betro, 45, was convicted of conspiracy to murder and possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear or violence in the failed September 2019 murder plot.
Authorities said a Derbyshire father, Mohammed Aslam, and his son, Mohammed Nazir, recruited Betro to kill a man they were feuding with. Betro tried to shoot the man’s son outside of the family’s Birmingham home, but her gun jammed, West Midlands police said in a news release. The son jumped back in his car and fled. He was not shot.
She returned to the home hours later and fired three bullets through the bedroom windows.
Following the shootings, Betro briefly returned to the United States before going on the run. She was arrested in Armenia last year, police said.
“Only Betro knows what truly motivated her or what she sought to gain from becoming embroiled in a crime that meant she travelled hundreds of miles from Wisconsin to Birmingham to execute an attack on a man she did not know,” Hannah Sidaway, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service West Midlands, said in a statement.
Betro arrived in the United Kingdom on Aug. 22, 2019, a little more than two weeks before the shooting. Authorities said she tried to pass herself off as a tourist, posting pictures and videos of landmarks, but “her real purpose was to commit murder.”
Police said she met up with Nazir, who allegedly recruited her to carry out the attack after meeting her on a dating app. According to prosecutors, Aslam and Nazir were feuding with a man following an altercation at the man’s shop.
The first shooting occurred Sept. 7, 2019. Police said security video showed the man’s son getting out of his car as Betro approached. Prosecutors said she disguised herself with a niqab, a garment worn by Muslim women to cover their bodies and faces.
“Betro tried to kill a man in a Birmingham street at point-blank range,” said Sidaway. “It is sheer luck that he managed to get away unscathed.”
She returned to the home early the next morning, firing shots through the windows.
Authorities said Betro texted the victim’s father after both shootings and said, “Stop playing hide n seek. You’re lucky it jammed. Who is it? Your family or you? Pick one.”
Police also said they found a video on Nazir’s phone of the gun they believe Betro used in the shootings. Security video also showed her buying “burner” phones before the shootings.
Investigators said at Betro’s trial that she did not “have a huge footprint criminally” in the U.S. or anywhere else, the BBC reported. She denied her involvement in the shootings, telling the jury that it was “a terrible coincidence” that she was in the area around the time of the attacks, the outlet reported.
Betro was also convicted in a separate incident that involved her smuggling ammunition into the U.K. in an attempt to frame another rival of Nazir’s, according to police.
She is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 21.
Aslam and Nazir were convicted of charges related to the murder plot. Aslam was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison, and Nazir was sentenced to 32 years.
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